Dell’s Inspiron range of laptops has long been a popular choice for many buyers thanks to its approachable pricing and features. The company’s new 16-inch series of Inspiron laptops aims to deliver a more premium experience for productivity and entertainment. We have with us today the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 laptop which boasts of a taller 16:10 aspect ratio display, four speakers, and the ability to unfold into a tablet. Dell is pitching it as an entertainment and productivity solution, so let’s see if it achieves that goal.

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 price in India

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 starts at Rs. 1,00,990 in India for the base variant, which has an Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a full-HD resolution display. The other configuration is priced at Rs. 1,40,990 and this gets you an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce MX550 GPU, and a 4K resolution OLED display.

The metal body of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 looks and feels premium

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 design

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a minimalistic design and looks slick in the Platinum Silver colour. The back of the metal lid is plain with just a Dell logo etched on the surface. It is a heavy laptop, weighing a little over 2kg, and it takes up a lot of space on a desk or in a backpack. Even so, Dell has managed to keep the thickness under 20mm so it doesn’t feel like you’re carrying a thick slab of metal in the hand.

The sides of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are very angular but have soft edges so nothing really digs into your skin when using it. The base of the laptop has ports on either side, and these include a full-sized SD card slot, two USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-A ports, a headphone jack, HDMI 1.4 (up to 1080p 60Hz output), and two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports.

The palm rest area is large and spacious and the same goes for the trackpad. Despite the size of this laptop, you don’t get a full keyboard layout, but the keys are spaced well and the backlighting is easily visible through the grey keycaps.You get two large speaker vents on either side of the keys, similar to Apple’s MacBook Pros. The power button also houses a fingerprint sensor, and the higher-end variant comes with an infrared camera for Windows Hello authentication.

You get a decent number of ports on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1

The 16-inch display looks massive up-close and is taller than the usual 16:9 aspect ratio. It supports touch input, and has a 60Hz refresh rate and a full-HD (1920×1200) resolution. The display is rated to deliver up to 300 nits of brightness, which seems more than adequate for home use. The display bezels on the left and right are thin but the top and bottom are slightly thicker. There’s a 1080p webcam above the display with a physical privacy shutter. The bottom of the display has a fabric layer which covers the two front-firing speakers.

The base variant of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 which was sent for this review ships with only a 65W power adapter and some documentation. You’ll need to buy Dell’s stylus separately if you wish to use it with this laptop.

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 specifications and software

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 comes with Intel’s 13th Gen CPUs and this base variant has an Intel Core i5-1335U processor with 10 CPU cores. There’s 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. The laptop also features a 6-cell, 86WHr battery, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth.

The laptop ships with Windows 11 Home and comes with some of Dell’s own apps preinstalled such as SupportAssist and MyDell. You also get a full license for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 and a 15-month subscription to McAfee Antivirus.

Tent mode is convenient if you need to watch content and save some desk space

Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 performance and battery life

The performance of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 during this review was very good. The large vents on the bottom and between the two hinges ensure there’s good airflow in and out of the system. The laptop ran silently and cool with most casual tasks, and I only heard the fans when performing intensive tasks such as running benchmarks and gaming. Since this is a convertible laptop, you can use it in a variety of positions. Tent mode is something I used often when watching video content and if I wanted to save some desk space. The only issue I faced was volume control, which required using the touchscreen since there aren’t any physical buttons on any side of this laptop.

Video looks great on the large display, however reflections can sometimes be an issue. The speakers sound very good and produce clean highs and decent bass, although I felt that the maximum volume could have been better. This variant of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 isn’t really designed for gaming since it only has onboard graphics, but you can still play casual games from the Microsoft Store. Webcam quality is decent but the picture gets grainy in low light.

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 posted strong benchmark scores relative to its configuration. Cinebench R20 returned 631 and 3,056 points in its single- and multi-core tests. PCMark 10 returned 4,915 points, while 3DMark Time Spy managed 1,351 points. Results from real-world tests were good too. It took just 56 seconds to encode a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 MKV, while the BMW test scene in Blender took 7 minutes, 4 seconds to render.

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 runs cool for the most part thanks to good airflow

Battery life of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 was pretty stellar. The laptop conforms to the Intel Evo platform, which guarantees a certain level of performance and all-day battery life. The laptop ran just shy of four hours in the Battery Eater Pro test, which is a solid number and well above average. This translates to very good real-world battery life too, and I was generally able to average a good eight to nine hours of usage, while taking a few short breaks in between.

Verdict

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a well-built and good performing convertible laptop which also delivers great battery life. It’s a little too expensive, but it’s a convertible and has a touchscreen display, so if you don’t really need these features then you should look at the standard Inspiron 16. Other 16-inch laptops with a similar configuration are also generally less expensive. I feel that at this price and configuration, Dell should have bundled a stylus along with the laptop. There aren’t many other negative points for the Inspiron 16 2-in-1, other than the fact that it’s a little cumbersome to carry around and perhaps physical volume buttons on the side would have been convenient when using it in other modes.

The post Dell Inspiron 16 | 2 in 1 Review: Keeping It Classy appeared first on Review Products.

India isn’t seen as a huge market for handheld gaming consoles. Nintendo doesn’t have an official presence here at all, Sony never really promoted the PS Vita, and there’s no hope of the Steam Deck coming in anytime soon. There clearly is some demand, evidenced by the easy availability of grey-market Nintendo Switch units, online listings for niche Chinese manufacturers such as Ayaneo, and even small yet vocal crowds of retro console enthusiasts in forums online. However, they’re a microscopic niche compared to smartphone gamers here, with PUBG/BGMI becoming a cultural phenomenon and even casual titles making enormous money. Over 500 million Indians are estimated to play games on their smartphones; double what the figure was just five years ago. That’s incredible in terms of sheer market potential.

But what games are these people playing, how much are they willing to spend, and how does the hardware and software fit into their lives? Is there space for a dedicated portable gaming device in the Indian market? And can the new Asus ROG Ally, which costs more than some entry-level gaming laptops, fill it? After spending some time with the device, and some conversations with Asus, here’s what I think.

Asus ROG Ally price in India

Internationally, there are two variants of the ROG Ally, and the only difference is the choice of SoC – AMD’s new Ryzen Z1 powers the lower-end one, while the more capable Ryzen Z1 Extreme can deliver better performance in games. Asus has brought only the higher-end version to India, at least for now. This makes sense, because it isn’t competing with anything on price and you might as well make a good impression with the best possible performance. It costs Rs. 69,990 which isn’t bad considering the specifications.

You don’t get very much in the box – just a fairly oversized charger and a power cable. It’s particularly disappointing that there’s no case, since this is by nature a portable device. Asus does sell a case which has compartments for microSD cards and can function as a stand, but that’s an added cost. Third-party alternatives should be available soon.

The ROG Ally’s 7-inch screen is just the right size for comfortable gaming

Asus ROG Ally: What it is and who it’s for

Appearance aside, the ROG Ally is much closer to a full-fledged computer than a handheld console. It has a standard processor with an integrated GPU, and all the components you’d expect except a keyboard and trackpad. It boots up just like a PC and runs Windows 11 Home. This is its greatest strength, because it can run pretty much any PC game including plenty of free ones – but also its greatest weakness, because you’re using software and hardware in ways they might not have originally been designed for. We’ll get into this in much more detail soon.

You can run almost any PC game, and most recent ones actually work surprisingly well. Asus isn’t interested in creating its own ecosystem to compete with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, so there’s no custom hardware or software and no tie to a specific game store. You can download anything from the Internet, including through the Steam, Epic, EA, etc stores. You can install any company’s launcher, use cloud or subscription services, and even hook up an external drive via USB to copy files over. That also opens up a huge world of free games (and ones obtained in less-than-ethical ways). Besides, titles usually cost far less on PC than they do on consoles, and older games are often heavily discounted.

But then there’s that Rs. 69,990 price – if you’re a mobile gamer looking to get to the next level, you probably want a gaming laptop. The ROG Ally isn’t a replacement or alternative, unless you have extreme space constraints plus a computer that you already use for non-gaming tasks.

The buttons and sticks on the ROG Ally are modelled on Microsoft’s Xbox controller layout

Asus imagines that people will use the ROG Ally not only as a handheld, but also docked with a TV. You could even pick up one of the company’s XG Mobile external GPUs, which start at around Rs. 80,000 in India and go up to Rs. 1,82,990 for a GeForce RTX 4090) to turn the ROG Ally into a full gaming setup with up to a 4K monitor or TV.

Other than price and size, two big considerations are battery life and performance while running on battery power, which we’ll test soon. Another thing to remember is that a lot of PC games require always-on or periodic Internet connectivity, so the ROG Ally might not be all that suited for those who want to play games on a long flight or while commuting.

And then there are non-gaming use cases too – you definitely won’t want to browse the Web or type office documents on the tiny 7-inch touchscreen, but it’s better than a phone for watching movies on. Plus, a cheap USB dock and some peripherals could make the ROG Ally quite versatile in many situations.

The ROG Ally seems to be something you’d have in addition to a more traditional gaming setup – a bit of an indulgence, maybe for a student who wants to keep it hidden in a dorm, a frequent traveler, or a very committed couch potato. It’s hard to imagine choosing the Ally instead of a similarly priced laptop. Hopefully in the future, prices will go down and devices like this will make up a new, more affordable tier of gaming PCs.

You get a simple stand in the box, but a carry case would have been much more appreciated

Asus ROG Ally design and capabilities

Physically, the ROG Ally is a little bigger than the Nintendo Switch and quite a lot smaller than the Steam Deck. The general layout of buttons and controls is deliberately modelled on an Xbox controller, to make gaming on Windows as seamless as using Microsoft’s own hardware. Asus says it focused a huge amount of engineering effort on keeping weight down, and the final 608g was achieved through some very creative structural work as well as paying attention to every little detail, down to the design of the fan blades and every last hardware choice.

It’s comfortable to hold, and the weight is fine. My index fingers sat naturally on the triggers and my ring fingers found the macro paddles on the back. The front-firing speakers aren’t obstructed by a user’s palms at all, and sound is surprisingly rich and clear. There are also stereo mics with noise cancelling. A fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button on the top.

Of course, front and centre we have the 7-inch full-HD display. I think Asus got the size and proportions right – I never had to hold the ROG Ally too close to my face. Viewing angles aren’t the greatest and colours are fine, but don’t pop especially. That said, Windows 11 was clearly not designed for this screen size, and some text elements can be hard to read. Text input is the most painful, particularly during the Windows 11 setup process. The virtual keyboard can take up half the screen when docked, and cover what you’re trying to do when floating. I found myself using a stylus rather than trying to finger-pick letters, and it felt like typing on an old-school PDA at times. You can use the macro paddles on the rear to trigger several common Windows functions, but that requires memorising them.

There are two small buttons on either side of the screen – you might recognise the Menu and View buttons if you’re an Xbox user, and that’s exactly what they’re for in games. There’s also a button for Asus’ custom control panel on the left, and an Armoury Crate software shortcut on the right.

The power and volume buttons as well as all ports are on the top of the ROG Ally

The ABXY buttons are colour-coded but in a very muted palette. Button quality is decent; not much different from a console controller. The trigger buttons use Hall effect sensors and allow for analogue control based on how far you press them. Asus hasn’t announced plans for swappable buttons, triggers and sticks like you might find on some high-end console controllers. There’s also a 6-axis gyro sensor and vibrators in each grip, which some but not all games can take advantage of.

Asus has shown many design prototypes it experimented with before settling on this design. Overall, it’s pretty plain. It doesn’t scream “gamer” with any sharp lines or bright accents but you do get a bit of RGB flair around the analogue sticks and a reflective strip on the back. The diagonal slash matches the current ROG series aesthetic. The company says it has gone with textures that work well for grip and allowing sweat on your palms to evaporate. The Ally is only available in white, and I hope the plastic doesn’t get discoloured after long months of gaming with sweaty palms.

Build quality feels pretty good – even with vigorous button mashing and the inevitable bending and twisting that happens when caught up in the action of a game, the ROG Ally never felt delicate or cheap. The display uses Gorilla Glass Victus with an anti-reflective coating. There’s no IP rating because the active cooling requires open air vents, although Asus says they are filtered to prevent dust ingress. One negative is that the ports and slot on the top aren’t protected; a rubber flap would have been appreciated.

The paddles on the rear let you trigger macros when pressed in combination with other buttons

Asus ROG Ally specifications and software

At the heart of the ROG Ally is the new AMD Ryzen Z1 series of SoCs. These are slightly trimmed versions of the Ryzen 7040 series chips, codenamed “Phoenix” and originally designed for premium ultralight laptops. They’re based on the current Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU architectures. The Ryzen Z1, which we won’t see in India yet, features six CPU cores and four GPU compute units, while the Ryzen Z1 Extreme steps up to eight CPU cores and 12 GPU units. Maximum boost clock speeds are 4.9GHz and 5.1GHz respectively, Both have 9-30W TDP ranges.

That’s a surprising amount of power and explains the need for a dual-fan cooling system. What we have here is essentially an entire laptop’s worth of hardware packed into a thick rectangle rather than a clamshell. It’s surprising that AMD is marketing both these chips as explicitly optimised for handheld gaming, since they could power various types of miniature PCs.

Back to the ROG Ally though, we also have 16GB of LPDDR5 memory which is of course soldered and not upgradeable. The SSD is a 512GB PCIe 4.0 unit and is socketed, though the smaller M.2 2230 form factor isn’t very easily available. Asus says ROG Ally owners are free to perform an upgrade, but it will void their warranty so it’s best to have trained service centre staff do it.

Asus went with a 7-inch, full-HD 120Hz “IPS level” display. It supports AMD Freesync Premium, brightness is rated at 500nits and colour reproduction is 100 percent sRGB. The battery capacity is 40Wh which is understandable for a handheld. You get a 65W USB-PD charging brick, which is surprisingly bulky and seems to be the same one that the company ships with some of its laptops. There’s no mention of quick charging.

Asus’ Armoury Crate SE software lets you tweak the controller inputs and set system-wide options

You get just one USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-C port for charging and connecting peripherals such as a portable SSD. It can also be used for an external display over DisplayPort 1.4. This port is part of Asus’ proprietary XG Mobile Interface, which essentially lets you route PCIe lanes externally. The XG Mobile docks, initially designed for the ultra-compact ROG Flow laptop series, give you a huge boost in GPU power and multiple additional ports including Ethernet, USB, and multiple display outputs. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E (which isn’t technically licensed to work in India) and Bluetooth 5.2.

The ROG Ally also has a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. Asus states that you can install almost any game onto a microSD card and it will only be marginally slower than using the SSD, which in theory would be a great way to carry more games and content around with you. Unfortunately recent reports have confirmed that microSD cards are prone to failure due to the slot’s proximity to a hot air vent.

One big challenge for Asus was making the Windows 11 UI manageable on such a small screen, and so the Armoury Crate SE software acts as a launcher, with your games front and centre. It also has a bunch of options for customising everything from the analogue stick responsiveness to Aura Sync lighting and checking for firmware updates. You can use it to launch individual games as well as storefronts such as Steam and the Xbox app if you have a Game Pass subscription.

The Command Centre overlay can be called up within games, and gives you big, touch-friendly buttons. You can control brightness and volume, but more importantly toggle between performance modes (30/25W, 15W and 10W), change game profiles, and pull up useful tools. You can fully customise its layout and add shortcuts for the Windows desktop, on-screen keyboard, and task manager. For power users, there are controls letting you cap screen resolution and refresh rate on the fly, toggle an FPS limiter and use AMD Radeon Software features such as Radeon Image Sharpening and Radeon Super Resolution upscaling.

You can pull up this panel at any time to change system performance parameters

Asus ROG Ally usage and performance

There are loads of system settings you can tweak, and so performance can be tricky to measure. I noticed that the 30W Turbo mode was only available when using the ROG Ally with its bundled 65W charger – the TDP was capped at 25W when on battery power and even when using a third-party 61W adapter. More interestingly, plugging in a USB Type-C dock and routing power through that also limited the Ally to 25W. This was a bit of a surprise, and you’ll probably encounter this too, since most docks don’t specify their passthrough power ratings.

Speaking of docks, I found mine to be indispensable when setting up the ROG Ally and performing general tasks in Windows. A fast wired Internet connection really helped when downloading 100GB+ games. In fact, I had to daisy-chain two hubs because I needed at least one USB port for an external SSD and one each for a keyboard and mouse, plus pass-through power. Wireless peripherals will take some of this load off but the Ally really needs at least one more USB port – it is after all a full Windows PC. If you’re planning to use a desktop monitor or TV, output resolution and refresh rate might also depend on the chain of docks and cables or adapters you use.

The 30W mode is what you should be using for gaming when plugged in. This unlocks the Ryzen Z1 Extreme’s full performance, and also reveals one of its biggest limitations. You can’t use the full potential of the ROG Ally unless it’s plugged in to a power source – this is normal for laptops, but a bit frustrating for a handheld.

The supplied power brick is quite large by today’s standards

Battery life is also greatly affected when the higher power modes are enabled. As you’ll see from the benchmark test and game performance scores below, you can get decent enough performance in heavy games at 30/25W but 15W is more sensible for battery-powered gaming. FPS numbers drop drastically and disproportionately at the 10W setting, so this is only really advisable when you’re doing things like watching videos or running non-game software.

You can expect 1-2 hours of gaming at reasonable settings, using the 15W mode. This of course depends on which game you choose, but that still isn’t a lot. Asus rates video playback time at 6 hours using the 10W mode. Our graphics-heavy Battery Eater Pro test ran for 2 hours, 23 minutes at 10W. This won’t get you through a long road trip but most plane seats have power outlets these days so that’s at least one possibility. Charging isn’t particularly quick – I noted a 20 percent battery level after 10 minutes of charging when completely switched off.

All games and tests were run at the 25W setting to gauge maximum performance under ordinary conditions, except where noted. Starting with general performance tests, the ROG Ally scored 6,886 points in the synthetic PCMark benchmark’s standard run, and 6,891 points in its Extended run. Geekbench 6 managed a single-core score of 2,521 and a multi-core score of 11,570. Cinebench R23 is another popular standardised test, and it completed its render workload with 1,761 points with a single active thread and 14,108 points with all threads active.

The ROG Ally should have had at least one more USB Type-C port for charging while peripherals are plugged in

The POVRay render test finished its default benchmark in just 52 seconds. The browser-based Webxprt 4, Basemark Web, and Jetstream 2 tests returned scores of 282, 1969.65, and 273.372 respectively. Compressing our standard 3.24GB folder of assorted files with 7-zip took 1 minute, 28 seconds and transcoding a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 using Handbrake took 41 seconds.

At 25W, all these scores are roughly on par with or better than what you can expect from the recently launched 15-inch MacBook Air, although Apple’s M2 SoC only needs passive cooling. The ROG Ally also handily beats a current-gen Windows-based ultraportable, the LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q), with its low-power Intel Core i7-1260P processor. Most of that is down to AMD’s beefy integrated GPU.

For the sake of comparison, I ran some tests again in the 10W mode. Geekbench 6 scores dropped to 1,840 and 6,869 for the single- and multi-core tests respectively. 7zip took 2 minutes, 29 seconds for the exact same compression task, and video transcoding took 1 minute, 35 seconds.

Of course graphics and gaming test results are what everyone’s been waiting for. The trusty 3DMark posted scores of 1,477 in 3DMark’s Port Royal ray tracing benchmark, 3,138 in the DX12 Time Spy test, and 7,203 in the legacy Fire Strike test. That’s far better than what we’ve seen from laptops such as the Xiaomi Notebook Pro 120G with its entry-level GeForce MX550 GPU, and slots in neatly below the mainstream GeForce RTX 3050, as seen in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X.

You can set up a desktop with a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but it doesn’t seem practical for gaming

The Unigine Superposition test managed a score of 5,004 with a 37.43fps average at the 25W setting, and that came down to 3,958 points with an average of 29.6fps at 10W. Both runs used the 1080p Medium preset. The difference in absolute values as well as overall consistency shows how performance scales down when trying to save power. Gears Tactics has a fairly intense built-in benchmark which managed a 53.5fps average at 25W but only an unplayable 16.5fps average at 10W, also using the same 1920×1080 resolution and High quality preset.

We have some more in-game benchmarks lined up, since these let us compare performance across devices and platforms under identical conditions. GTA V is now quite old but still popular, and a great example of what I’d like to play on a portable console. While it was fun, graphics quality was not great. Even at 1280×720 resolution, most graphics quality variables were disabled or set to Low by default. The built-in benchmark averaged 30.24fps with the minimum dropping to just 11.44fps.

Other games fared considerably better. The classic Rise of the Tomb Raider ran fairly well at 1080p using its Medium preset. The benchmark average was 41fps which is good enough. Far Cry 5 is another of our regular benchmark tests, and this title managed an average of 43fps at 1080 using its High preset. You might encounter stutters and slowdowns in intense sequences in-game, but there’s no doubt that they’re playable and enjoyable.

Doom Eternal looks great and is incredibly fast-paced, but is also known to be forgiving when it comes to hardware. Using its on-screen diagnostic counter, I was able to test the ROG Ally at three different power settings across a level that included navigating some simple passages followed by a major fight sequence. When plugged in and running at its 30W Turbo setting, I was able to play at 50-70fps and there was no issue other than fan noise. The 15W mode took performance down to about 45fps which was also fine – this is what you should expect when playing on battery power. However, the game ran at an excruciating 20fps and fight sequences were impossible, when I tried the 10W mode. The resolution was set to 1080p throughout, and the quality setting was Ultra.

Casual games run well on battery power and are fun to play on the ROG Ally

Superhot is not as graphically intense but seems well suited to the form factor of the ROG Ally. Using the game’s High preset and the console’s 30W setting, I was comfortable with the 100fps or so that Asus’ overlay showed. at Sadly, that dropped to just about 30fps at 15W.

And what about casual games? I did manage to have fun with simple titles such as Portal 2, Slime Rancher, and Rayman Legends. These ran poorly at the 10W setting but seemed to be manageable at 15W. Games such as these are designed to work with a controller, and detected the ROG Ally’s hardware as a standard input device, letting me tweak button assignments in-game. Many PC games these days are console ports anyway, so the UI and controls just worked. Civilization VI felt too constrained on the tiny screen and controls were quite painful – I can’t imagine spending much time with simulation or strategy titles on this device.

For games that don’t just work with a controller, Armoury Crate SE can be used to create per-game profiles and manually map keyboard or mouse inputs to the Ally’s buttons and sticks. This isn’t always smooth, since using an analogue stick is very different to using a mouse. I tried one fairly old game, Mirror’s Edge, in order to gauge the controller experience here because I had enjoyed it very much on an Xbox 360, but it crashed on launch and just refused to run.

Beyond that, many casual Windows games are designed either for mouse-and-keyboard input or a touchscreen, and I found that Bloons TD6, Mini Motorways, and games of that sort worked best with touch input, ignoring the controller hardware altogether. The touchscreen isn’t very responsive, and these games really don’t do justice to the ROG Ally’s hardware, but if you have a portable computer then why not!

The ROG Ally’s fans are not exactly quiet when running games at the 30W setting. The sound isn’t too distracting but it is noticeable. Hot air rushes out the vents, thankfully away from your hands though.

Asus says it had to do a lot of work to achieve the final size and weight of the ROG Ally

Verdict

The Asus ROG Ally is a fascinating product. It’s genuinely new and fresh, and there’s clearly a market for it. However, I’m not quite sure it’s ready for mainstream adoption, and those who are immediately drawn to the concept should really consider a few key points about how and where they will end up using it. First of all, this isn’t a traditional handheld console – it’s a mini PC with a screen and a physically integrated controller. It doesn’t have its own ecosystem of games that just work, a game store, or a seamless UI. PC games won’t all run smoothly and working with Windows 11 can be annoying.

Moreover, the sheer number of variables you have to deal with manually can be daunting for casual gamers. You have to know what power profile is active, you can change the screen resolution and refresh rate, and I just didn’t have time to get into what’s possible with Radeon Super Resolution upscaling. During the review period, there weren’t many times that I actually saw any benefit in plugging the ROG Ally into a TV or using it at a desk with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I also don’t think an XG Mobile dock with a much more powerful GPU would be good enough value for money, for the use I got out of it.

PC games might expect always-on Internet access, so gaming on the go can be tricky. Adding a cellular data modem would have compromised battery life further, so it’s understandable that Asus didn’t implement that. The problem is there are places you can’t even tether, such as on a plane, which is exactly where you’d want a portable gaming machine to work.

You get the convenience of a fingerprint sensor and of course programmable RGB lighting effects

Battery life is very limited and you only get the best performance when plugged into a power source that can deliver 65W. For that reason I found myself using the ROG Ally most often when lounging at home. In that sense, it’s nice to have but it’s definitely an indulgence. If this is the main use case, rather than gaming while outdoors or traveling, I’d prioritise buying a gaming laptop and a capable smartphone before spending money on this device.

I’m surprised that other manufacturers haven’t yet announced their own versions of the same thing, but I can’t say whether that’s because AMD’s Ryzen Z1 series isn’t widely available to OEMs, they were caught off guard and need more R&D time, or they’re choosing to wait and watch. Asus is clearly confident enough to launch the ROG Ally worldwide – and has created quite a lot of resources including guides on its website to help you optimise game settings and get familiar with it. I’m fascinated to see whether this will end up as a one-off, like many of Asus’ most inventive products, or whether we’ve just seen the birth of a whole new market. As for the Ryzen Z1 series SoCs, I’d love to see them in a variety of compact form factors beyond handheld gaming consoles.

Unlike the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, the ROG Ally is officially available in India. Just the fact that you will get authorised support for it makes spending Rs. 70,000 seem palatable, but you have to know exactly what you’re getting into. This isn’t a simple game console that you can just pull out of your bag to kill time with wherever you are. It also isn’t a low-cost gaming PC. It’s more of a plaything for enthusiasts who already have good PCs and who will find joy in the device itself, not just the games they play on it.

Asus ROG Ally

Price: Rs. 69,990

Pros:-

• Innovative and unique
• Powerful hardware
• Reasonable weight, good build quality
• Runs a wide variety of PC games

Cons:-

• Very limited battery life
• Only one USB port
• Windows UI is hard to use
• Carry case not included

Ratings (Out of 5):-

• Design: 4
• Display: 3.5
• Software: 3.5
• Performance: 5
• Battery life: 3
• Value for Money: 4
• Overall: 3.5

The post Asus ROG Ally Review: The Start of Something New? appeared first on Review Products.

Acer introduced the Swift Go laptop series at CES 2023, powered by both Intel and AMD CPUs. The AMD Ryzen-powered laptop was launched in March of this year in India, and today we’ll be reviewing the base model of the Swift Go 14. It is aimed at the urban youth who would want a stylish and premium looking laptop which is portable and powerful. Let’s find out if the Swift Go 14 checks all the boxes.

Acer Swift Go 14 price in India

The Acer Swift Go 14 is available in Prodigy Pink and Pure Silver colours. On the Acer India online store, the laptop starts at Rs. 59,999 and is the variant we’ll be testing. This comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. For about Rs. 5,000 more, you can get the same configuration but with 16GB of RAM.

Acer Swift Go 14 design and features

The Acer Swift Go 14 features a metal chassis which is what gives it a premium look and feel. It’s also quite compact and lightweight measuring just 15.9mm in thickness and 1.25kg in weight. The pink variant actually looks nice and grows on you after a while. You get a good variety of ports for a 14-inch laptop and these include two USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-C ports for charging, HDMI, USB 3.2 (Gen1) Type-A port, USB 2.0 Type-A port, headphone jack, and a Kensington lock. There’s no SD card reader of any kind, which I don’t think is a total loss. The right side of the laptop also has two LEDs for the power and activity status.

The Acer Swift Go 14 features an all-metal chassis and is fairly light

The backlit keyboard on the Acer Swift Go 14 is nicely laid out, and the keys themselves are responsive and not noisy. There’s a fingerprint sensor in the power button which wobbles when pressed, unlike the rest of the keys, but it works fine when it comes to authentication. The trackpad does a good job of tracking and you get a decent amount of room to rest your palms.

The 14-inch display has a 16:9 aspect ratio, making it ideal for watching most video content. The Acer Swift Go 14 uses an IPS display panel with a full-HD (1920×1080) resolution and comes with a matte, anti-glare finish. The display has a rated maximum brightness of 300 nits which I found to be more than adequate. The 1080p webcam is quite inconspicuous and is located just above the display. The Acer Swift Go 14 ships with just a 65W USB Type-C charger in the box.

Acer Swift Go 14 specifications and software

The Acer Swift Go 14 features an AMD Ryzen 5 7530U CPU featuring six CPU cores. It’s part of AMD’s mobile CPU refresh which was announced during CES this year. However, this model is based on a refreshed Zen 3 architecture, unlike the 7040 series which uses the latest Zen 4 architecture. This is currently the only CPU configuration that Acer offers in India for the Swift Go 14 series. Storage is taken care of by a 512GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 SSD, and there’s 8GB of RAM. The laptop also features Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1, and a 3-cell 50WHr battery.

The Acer Swift Go 14 features a good number of ports for a 14-inch laptop

The Acer Swift Go 14 ships with Windows 11 Home, along with the usual preinstalled programs such as Microsoft Office Home and Student, McAfee antivirus, and bunch of softwares by Acer for system diagnostics and keeping drivers up to date.

Acer Swift Go 14 performance and battery life

General performance of the Acer Swift Go 14 is very good. It runs cool and the fans are not audible when performing simple tasks, but you can hear them faintly during gaming. I found the typing angle to be quite ergonomic as the base is propped up a bit when the lid is open. The keyboard backlighting is also soothing and the display gets sufficiently bright even for daytime outdoor use. Applications are quick to load and I never really felt any lack of power.

The stereo speakers get loud but don’t sound all that great. Games run decently well with the onboard Radeon graphics. I was able to get smooth framerates in Fortnite with medium graphics and running at the display’s native resolution. In synthetic gaming tests such as 3DMark, the Acer Swift Go 14 returned a score of 1,268 in the Time Spy test suite, and 13,570 in Night Raid. CPU and SSD performance was also very good. The laptop scored 566 and 3,664 points in Cinebench R20, and returned an average read speed of over 1.5GB/s for both sequential and random tests in SiSoft Sandra. Write speeds were lower coming in under 900MB/s.

Video rendering and encoding performance was also quite good. The Acer Swift Go 14 took 45 seconds to encode a 1.3GB AVI file to H.265 MKV, while the BMW test scene in Blender took 6 minutes, 18 seconds to render. These were lower (better) times compared to something like the Intel Core i5-1335U CPU which we recently tested in the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1.

The keyboard on the Acer Swift Go 14 is comfortable to type on

Battery life is another highlight of the Acer Swift Go 14. Considering its size, it ran for an impressive 3 hours, 26 minutes in the Battery Eater Pro benchmark. With my daily workflow, I was able to get roughly 7-8 hours of non-stop use before the battery went below 10 percent. By these estimates, it should be possible to get even up to 10 hours of use on one charge (or more), if you don’t use it non-stop. The laptop can be charged fairly quickly using the bundled charger. You get roughly a 70 percent charge in an hour.

Verdict

It’s really hard to find fault with the Acer Swift Go 14 as it does everything you’d expect from a thin and light laptop, and this is before you even consider the price. At Rs. 59,999 (less during sales), you get a well-designed compact laptop with good performance and long battery life. The speakers are possibly the only thing that’s a little underwhelming, and the wobbly power button feels a little out of place in an otherwise well put-together laptop (or it could just be our unit). The Swift Go 14 is definitely worth recommending if you’re looking for a compact Windows laptop under Rs. 60,000 that doesn’t compromise on battery life.

The post Acer Swift Go 14 Review: Striking the Right Balance appeared first on Review Products.

Apple’s desktop strategy has taken an interesting turn this year. Not only has the company finally updated the Mac Pro, which was its last Intel-based computer, but there’s also a new version of the Mac Mini with a more powerful processor. This means there are more choices than ever, with new options at the ultra-high end as well as the mainstream-pro level. In between those sits the updated second-gen Mac Studio, with your choice of M2 Max and M2 Ultra processors.

We had thought this device might replace the Mac Pro or serve as the default option for content creators, but there’s more to it than that. In this review, we’ll check out what’s new with the 2023 Mac Studio and help you decide whether it’s the perfect middle ground, or whether any of its siblings would better suit your needs.

Mac Studio price in India

The Mac Studio is sold without a monitor, keyboard or mouse – all you get in the box is the unit itself, a power cable, and some documentation. Prices start at Rs. 2,09,900 for the base variant with an M2 Max SoC (12-core CPU, 30-core GPU), 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. A slightly more powerful M2 Max with 38 GPU cores instead of 30 will cost Rs. 20,000 more.

In typical Apple fashion, nothing can be upgraded post-purchase, and configuration options are extremely expensive. For example, you’d have to pay a shocking Rs. 40,000 more to step up to 64GB of RAM and Rs. 20,000 more to double your storage to 1TB. The SSD is actually removable, according to teardowns, but you can’t swap or upgrade it yourself due to software-level locks.

Options with the M2 Ultra SoC, which we’ll talk about later in this review, start at Rs. 4,19,900, which means you’re in a whole different class – this isn’t just a simple spec bump. This version of the Mac Studio will have 64GB RAM minimum, and a 1TB SSD. There are two versions of this SoC as well, with 16 extra GPU cores on the higher-end one raising the price by Rs. 1,00,000. You can step up to 128GB or 192GB of RAM (for an eye-watering Rs. 80,000 and Rs. 1,60,000 more respectively) plus up to 8TB of storage (another Rs. 2,20,000). That means the top-end spec goes for Rs. 8,99,900 – and that’s before adding any software.

Apple’s Studio Display would be well suited to the Mac Studio, and if you want to know whether it’s worth the Rs. 1,59,900 base price, check out my impressions of it in my recent Mac mini review. I also used Apple’s Magic Keyboard With Touch ID and Number Pad, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad during this review. Those are priced at Rs. 19,500, Rs. 9,500 and Rs. 14,500 respectively – so that’s well over Rs. 10,00,000 right there.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) design

The most obvious way to describe the Mac Studio is to say it looks like a taller Mac mini. It’s a simple, effective design that belies the amount of power inside. The Mac Studio is exactly as wide and deep, but over twice as tall, making it much less easy to tuck away than the mini. Stackable Mac mini accessories such as hubs should look right at home. It’s made of the same silver aluminum and has the same body texture. The Apple logo on the top is also larger, and the base a little more raised. This device is clearly meant to sit on your desk. I’m most thrilled to see ports on the front; something I’ve complained about with multiple generations of desktop Macs.

There’s very little else to say about design – the power LED on the front is surprisingly large. The back is where all the rest of the ports are, and you’ll also see a large air vent. In India, the AC power cord you get in the box unfortunately has a 16A power plug, and I’ve noted the inconvenience of this before, especially when power consumption shouldn’t be anywhere near that high. If you’re using a Mac Studio with a Studio Display, you’ll need two of these uncommon outlets at your desk. At least the power supply is built in, and you don’t have to deal with an external brick.

The M2 Max-based version weighs 2.7kg while the M2 Ultra-based version is a surprising 3.62kg, probably due to a needing a more robust cooling system. Both are still portable enough to be carried around if you need to work on location often. In fact, the box it comes in has a cloth handle so you can do just that. Plenty of companies also sell rack-mount adapters so you can slot one or more of these units into a standard equipment cage.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) specifications and software

I received an M2 Max-powered Mac Studio for this review, with the 30-core GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, which would be priced at Rs. 2,29,900 in India. The M2 Max is superior to the M2 and M2 Pro (which is where the Mac mini tops out), but fits below the M2 Ultra and even the M1 Ultra. The entire M2 family is fabricated on a 5nm process.

Apple says the M2 Max is made up of 67 billion transistors. It features the same 12-core CPU block and 16-core ‘Neural Engine’ AI accelerator as the M2 Pro but GPU resources jump up to 30 or 38 cores and RAM support goes up to 96GB. You also get double the video encoding resources in hardware, including acceleration for Apple’s own ProRES format, compared to the M2 Pro. That’s a large part of how the Mac Studio is positioned above the Mac mini – these differences won’t matter much for everyday photo and video editing but will certainly come into play when editing or recolouring multiple 4K or higher-res video streams, processing 3D models and visual effects, and even training machine learning models.

The Mac Studio will update to the latest version of macOS on first boot Apple

Compared to a previous-gen Mac Studio with the M1 Max SoC, Apple says this model with the M2 Max can render motion graphics in Adobe AfterEffects up to 50 percent faster, or build Xcode projects 25 percent faster.

If you’re splurging on a higher-end Mac Studio, you’ll get the M2 Ultra SoC which is Apple’s current top-end in-house processor and essentially doubles everything about the M2 Max – in fact, it’s two M2 Max dies joined together with a custom high-speed interconnect. That’s around 134 billion transistors, according to Apple, and means you get 24 CPU cores and either 60 or 76 GPU cores, plus twice the Neural Engine capacity, memory bandwidth, and media encoding resources.

A 2023 Mac Studio with an M2 Max SoC can drive up to four 6K displays plus another at 4K 60Hz, or two 4K displays plus one 8K at 60Hz. If that wasn’t enough, the M2 Ultra-powered variants can handle up to eight 4K, six 6K or three 8K 60Hz displays – and you can use that headroom for higher refresh rates on fewer displays, and play with different permutations thereof.

On the rear panel, you get four Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps) Type-C ports, two USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports, 10Gb Ethernet, HDMI, and a 3.5mm combo audio socket. There’s also the three-pin AC mains inlet and a power button. It’s nice to see legacy USB Type-A ports, but connectivity on the front is even better. On M2 Max-powered units these two Type-C ports work at USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) speed but the M2 Ultra can drive more Thunderbolt 4 ports so you get all that bandwidth. The card slot supports SDXC cards but not the newer SDExpress format.

Like the Mac mini, there’s a built-in speaker which is decent enough for notifications but you wouldn’t want to use it for music. If you’re connected to a Studio Display which has its own speakers, or any other external ones, this speaker will be bypassed. As for wireless communications, there’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

MacOS is of course preloaded and you’ll need an iCloud account to set up any current-day Mac. You get all of the preloaded apps including Safari, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books, FaceTime, iMovie, GarageBand, Mail, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Maps. There is of course the company’s own App Store, and all the iCloud ecosystem tie-ins such as Find My. If you also use an iPhone, iPad and/or AirPods with the same Apple account, you’ll be able to sync content across them easily.

Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) specifications and software

When you first power up the Mac Studio, you’re guided through a fairly lengthy setup process. You’ll have to sign in or create a new Apple ID, and you can import data from iCloud or another Apple device automatically. A few security features are enabled by default – your SSD is encrypted, the version of macOS you have installed is verified to be unmodified, booting from other media isn’t possible. Your SSD is also encrypted by default. These are the first signs that the Mac Studio is intended to be used in a production environment. My Apple accessories were detected automatically and I was able to enroll my fingerprint seamlessly. On first boot, I was offered upgrades to macOS Ventura 13.5 and the Apple Studio Display firmware 16.4.

There’s really nothing to be said about everyday performance – it’s perfectly fine. If you want to know more about using macOS and Apple’s monitor and accessories, check out our Mac mini review. In short, everything’s very expensive but you won’t get the same experience and some features such as Touch ID with third-party products. One little note is that as much as I like having USB Type-C ports on the front, you’ll need to hold the Mac Studio down with one hand when plugging in or unplugging devices with your other hand, since it isn’t very heavy.

The 2023 Mac Studio is available with either the M2 Max or M2 Ultra SoC Apple

Things only really start to feel different when running benchmarks. Starting with Geekbench 6, I got scores of 2,664 in the single-core CPU test, 14,508 in the multi-core test, and 74,465 in the GPU OpenCL test. For reference, the Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023) scored a completely unsurprising 2,654 and 14,208 in the CPU-based scores but its GPU score was significantly lower at 49,686. Cinebench R23’s render test posted single-core and all-cores scores of 1,660 and 14,539 respectively, which are again at par with what the Mac mini managed.

SSD performance, as measured by AmorphousDiskMark, indicated sequential read and write speeds of 6,497.12MBps and 7,044MBps, which is also on par with what the Mac mini was capable of. As you can see, depending on your workload, you might be perfectly fine with Apple’s much less expensive desktop. In such cases, you’ll have to spend far more on the M2 Ultra SoC to get to the next performance tier.

We start to see the M2 Max-based Mac Studio set itself apart when it comes to content creation and more holistic tests. The browser-based WebXprt benchmark managed 255 points, Basemark Web test showed a score of 2,285.41, and Jetstream 2 posted 320.501. The LuxMark render test posted a score of 39,217 for the standard LuxBall scene, and IndigoBench’s Bedroom and Supercar scene tests managed 1.679 and 3.848 Megasamples per second respectively. Blender’s popular Barcelona Pavilion Demo took 7 minutes, 2 seconds to render and the Classroom scene took 5 minutes, 50 seconds.

Using Final Cut Pro to transcode a 23.8GB ProRES 4K file shot with an iPhone 13 Pro to H.254 1080p took approximately 37 seconds, and keeping the resolution at 4K, that only rose to approximately 1 minute, 48 seconds.

Coming to graphics performance, GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins and Car Chase test runs both maxed out at 60fps, likely due to being constrained by the Studio Display. The same tests set to render off-screen at 4K pushed out a whopping 144.934fps and 589.78fps respectively, which is considerably higher than what the Mac mini managed. Unigine’s Valley benchmark posted 114.6fps at 1920×1080 using the Ultra quality preset with AA set to 4X. AAA games are still relatively rare on the Mac platform, but the trusty Rise of the Tomb Raider averaged 111fps at 1920×1080, 75fps at 2560×1440, and 38fps at 4K, all using the High quality preset.

The Mac Studio’s cooling system was barely audible. At no point during testing did I even notice fan noise. The top of the unit only got slightly warm.

Verdict

All of our performance testing and observations apply to the M2 Max-based Mac Studio. This SoC is notably faster than the M2 Pro in some areas but not all and you should really examine your workload and future requirements carefully before spending your money on the Mac Studio vs the Mac mini. You should really consider the M2 Ultra version of the Mac Studio a completely different product. Its performance and price puts it in another class altogether, and the target market is also different. This machine will likely suffice for anyone who has heavy creative production work.

That relegates the brand new Mac Pro to an extremely niche audience – it’s only for those who need expansion cards for specific workflow environments such as a fibre-based network interface, more NVMe storage, and low-latency audio/video interfaces. The Mac Studio offers none of this expandability (aside from what you can do with external Thunderbolt devices), but that should be fine for a lot of creative workers.

The Mac Studio is great at handling content creation workloads Apple

Considering how powerful the Mac Studio is, it’s quite remarkable how Apple managed to keep it this small. The tradeoff is upgradability – absolutely nothing about the Mac Studio’s internal components can be upgraded or even swapped out. Apple’s RAM and storage configuration options at the time of purchase are infuriatingly overpriced, but there’s nothing anyone can do about that.

Video editors, 3D artists and software developers who deal with a lot of high-resolution content seem to be the primary target audience for the Mac Studio. It’s potentially good value for money, but you should really study all the options available to you within Apple’s current catalogue before deciding to buy it.

Price: Rs. 2,09,900 (as reviewed)

Pros:

• Very good performance
• Compact and quiet
• Ports on the front

Cons:

• RAM and storage not upgradeable
• Expensive configuration options

Ratings (out of 5):

• Design: 4
• Performance: 4.5
• Software: 4.5
• Value for Money: 3.5
• Overall: 4

The post Apple Mac Studio (M2 Max, 2023) Review: The Middle-Ground Mac for Content Creators appeared first on Review Products.

In a sea of budget smartwatches, Fire-Boltt’s Phoenix Ultra stands out. This is mainly because of two factors — its price and design. The smartwatch is currently available in India at Rs. 2,199 makes it one of the most affordable smartwatches to sport a classic watch design and metal body, which feels familiar and appears more like a traditional timepiece than a smartwatch. I was a bit excited to see how it was possible to deliver such a device at this price point, but after a couple of weeks of use, I think know how it pulled it off.

Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra price, design and specifications

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra is currently available in single option which is officially priced at Rs. 2,999, but can be purchased for as low as Rs. 2,199 from online retailers. Fire-Boltt provides the smartwatch with a silicon strap, an extra magnetic metal loop strap, and a two-pin magnetic charger in the box.

The smartwatch is available in three case finishes – steel, black and gold. These finishes come with various strap combinations in the box. I received the steel finished case with a magnetic blue metal strap and soft grey silicone strap.

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra has a metal case and a 3D-curved display glass

At a glance, the steel finish of the 44mm case sure looks classy and very similar to traditional timepieces. For an entry-level smartwatch, the finish of this metal case is surprisingly good and devoid of any sharp or rough edges. The back of the case is made of plastic with the sensor laid out dead-centre and the metal charging contacts closer to the edge above it. The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra weighs 55g without the strap and also has an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance.

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra with both metal and silicon straps is quite comfortable and does not feel heavy. The 22mm silicone strap has a quick release mechanism for attaching itself to the case. The metal loop strap has a strong magnet to hold the watch in place. During the review period, the watch never came undone no matter which strap I used.

Fire-Boltt also offers an extra magnetic metal loop strap in the box

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra has a rather basic 1.39 inches LCD display with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels and a standard 60Hz refresh rate. It is surrounded by some really chunky bezels and the display in my unit seemed misaligned as the bottom bezel was a lot thicker than the rest.

The smartwatch has only one button and pressing it either wakes the display and shows the watch face or turns the display off. If you are in any other menu or app in the watch interface, pressing the button gets you back to the watch face directly.

Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra software and performance

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra offers a very basic software interface. While it lacks any support for third-party apps, even the basics aren’t covered here. For example, there’s no way to set the display timeout on the watch, which is set to five seconds by default. There’s no basic calculator app either. I could not even check the charging status of the watch.

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra needs to be disconnected from the charger in order to view the watch face, which is the only place that displays the battery status. Setting an alarm, timer or stopwatch requires one to enter the settings menu, which is a layer down from the main menu.

The display on the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra seems to be misaligned

Navigating this simple software interface is quite easy using swipe gestures, which is why the usefulness of the crown is reduced to simply powering the display on or off as the flick-to-wake gesture also works just fine.

Moving to the companion app, it’s as basic as the smartwatch’s UI and is available for both iOS and Android smartphones. The Da Fit app has three main sections — Today, device settings and My (which is basically the user’s profile). Setting up the app using an Android smartphone was a fairly easy experience, its just that you have to keep the app locked in the phone’s Recents menu to keep receiving notifications on the watch.

The Da Fit companion app has a simple interface

The Today page display’s readings from the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra which includes step count, sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, along with exercise records. The device settings section lets you change the watch face, adjust notifications, set alarms etc. There is an important section called Others buried deep in here that let me set the time format, unit system, DnD timings, continuous heart rate setting intervals, and most important of all, the auto-lock or display sleep setting, which is not accessible on the watch.

One can use GPS connected exercises like outdoor runs or walks only via the Da Fit mobile app as the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra does not have built-in GPS. What I did find odd is that the watch will never sync data to the app unless you enter the mobile app and swipe down to refresh the data in the Today section.

The watch face gallery has a handful of preinstalled watch faces (including one of Mahendra Singh Dhoni), but opening up the online gallery using the mobile app gave me access to plenty more downloadable ones, which appeared a lot more interesting. However, I did not manage to download and install a watch face even though these were barely 159kb in size. During this time, neither smartwatch nor the app is accessible, which can get frustrating.

It’s hard to tell which app a notification comes from on the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra

Notifications from the smartwatch are truncated. But it’s hard to tell which app they’re coming from as there is no clear iconography to indicate the same. Setting a timer on the smartphone will also push constant notifications for each passing second, filling up the notifications menu on the smartwatch.

Health tracking is another reason why most users go in for a smartwatch these days. Sadly my experience with the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra was far from great. To begin with the watch only offers two automated health monitoring features. The first one is sleep monitoring, which attempts to deliver detailed sleep stage data or reports like deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep and more.

However, I found this data to be far from accurate as the watch often counted my time resting in bed (before falling asleep) as time spent sleeping due to which the resulting data turned out inaccurate. Continuous heart rate monitoring was another automated health-tracking feature and it is customisable letting you choose the interval.

Regular heart rate measurements were inaccurate, inconsistent and quite unreliable when compared to the measurements provided by a standalone oximeter. SpO2 readings were a bit more reliable but still not consistent.

The Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra offers up to 123 fitness tracking sport modes. I tried out the basic step tracking feature using the Walking exercise mode and the watch managed to detect 505 instead of 500 steps, which seemed fine for a smartwatch at this price point. However, this is not a smartwatch I would choose for health and fitness tracking.

The Bluetooth calling feature works as expected and setting up the feature did not require me to pair the watch twice with the Android smartphone either. The caller could be heard loud and clear and wasn’t able to tell that I was calling from a smartwatch.

The magnetic charger fits snuggly in place while charging the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra

In terms of battery life, I found that the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra could deliver on its claimed battery life of seven days. This is possible mainly because the watch barely offers any auto-health tracking features since a majority of them have to be activated manually. Even data syncing does not take place automatically. Day to day battery drain was around 15-20 percent which included one short workout routine and sleep tracking. The automated heart rate monitoring, despite throwing up a warning, did not seem to affect battery life drastically provided I set it to 30 minute intervals. Charging the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra does take a while. When connected to a 33W charger, it took around two hours.

Verdict

It is difficult to beat the Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra when it comes to looks at this price, and that is sadly the only reason why could consider one. For everything else, there are much better options in the market.

If you are looking for accurate health-tracking features in a wearable, then the basic fitness band like the Amazfit Band 7 (Review) is definitely a more reliable option (at a lower price). Those looking for something fancier or closer to a smartwatch (with features like a larger display, Bluetooth calling and automated health tracking features), will find the new Redmi Watch 3 Active, a much better choice at Rs. 2,999. If you are looking for a premium-looking smartwatch, the OnePlus Nord Watch (Review) surely seems like a better choice at Rs. 4,999.

The post Fire-Boltt Phoenix Ultra Review: Got the Looks, but What About the Rest? appeared first on Review Products.